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Curious: what problem could be solved by a human (or group of humans) but not a computer (or group of computers)?

antipaul 6y ago
My half-serious reply: Figuring out what the problem is :) “Computers are useless, they can only give you answers”
majormajor 6y ago
Any problem where the solution requires persuading people to adopt it or comply with it. All those projects google shuts down? Those were problems they tried to solve but failed to.
rahulnair23 6y ago
Inequity, education, sustainability, public policy, governance - few examples where techno-solutionism isn't the right approach.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Actually it would be, at least for sustainability, inequality and parts of public policy/governance. Simulations of "what-if-when" scenarios or analysis of data (which is what public policy of any kind should be based upon anyway) are precisely what computers excel at. What humans (or rather: our governments) don't excel at: accurately using the data that technology gives us. We know that climate change is real, man-made and will fuck up entire continents, but still there are world leaders actively rejecting science.
pdkl95 6y ago
All problems are solved by humans; sometimes problem solving humans may use tools such as computers. Algorithms are just an automation that a human decided to use to solve a problem.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thewebcount 6y ago
Any problem where the inputs are ambiguous. Like when YouTube's ContentID takes down your video of you playing your original composition because someone else decided to claim it. Like when your Gmail account is closed because of a "Terms of Service" violation, but they won't tell you which one or show you what you did wrong. Basically most problems people have with Google could be solved by having a human spend 5 seconds looking into the issue and realizing, "Oh yeah, this is an edge case with an answer that's pretty obvious to a human, but not an algorithm."
mschuster91 6y ago
Anything that involves interpretation of ambiguous scenarios (most famous: Twitter, YT and Facebook deleting legal content that falls under freedom of speech based upon abusive mass reports but refusing to account for patterns of trolling behavior), and much that requires creative input (i.e. photo/video composition, shooting and editing).
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Security. Security cannot realistically be automated or scaled. Because any automated system at scale can be understood and gamed. And because humans interact with secure systems, and humans can be tricked. Even when you built a system that's say, cryptographically secure, you manipulate the humans to work around it, because humans aren't good at identifying cryptographic keys, and all automated systems serve human clients or masters. This is why the Play Store and Chrome Web Store are full of malware, and why human-curated app markets have effectively zero.
colinmhayes 6y ago
Whether an arbitrary program will end.
- seisvelas 6y ago
  Haha I know this wasn't intended as a joke, but this answer made me burst out laughing. Very true! On the other hand, that's not such an easy problem for humans to solve either

My half-serious reply: Figuring out what the problem is :) “Computers are useless, they can only give you answers”

Any problem where the solution requires persuading people to adopt it or comply with it. All those projects google shuts down? Those were problems they tried to solve but failed to.

rahulnair23 6y ago

Inequity, education, sustainability, public policy, governance - few examples where techno-solutionism isn't the right approach.

mschuster91 6y ago
Actually it would be, at least for sustainability, inequality and parts of public policy/governance. Simulations of "what-if-when" scenarios or analysis of data (which is what public policy of any kind should be based upon anyway) are precisely what computers excel at. What humans (or rather: our governments) don't excel at: accurately using the data that technology gives us. We know that climate change is real, man-made and will fuck up entire continents, but still there are world leaders actively rejecting science.

pdkl95 6y ago

All problems are solved by humans; sometimes problem solving humans may use tools such as computers. Algorithms are just an automation that a human decided to use to solve a problem.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

thewebcount 6y ago

Any problem where the inputs are ambiguous. Like when YouTube's ContentID takes down your video of you playing your original composition because someone else decided to claim it. Like when your Gmail account is closed because of a "Terms of Service" violation, but they won't tell you which one or show you what you did wrong. Basically most problems people have with Google could be solved by having a human spend 5 seconds looking into the issue and realizing, "Oh yeah, this is an edge case with an answer that's pretty obvious to a human, but not an algorithm."

mschuster91 6y ago

Anything that involves interpretation of ambiguous scenarios (most famous: Twitter, YT and Facebook deleting legal content that falls under freedom of speech based upon abusive mass reports but refusing to account for patterns of trolling behavior), and much that requires creative input (i.e. photo/video composition, shooting and editing).

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Security. Security cannot realistically be automated or scaled. Because any automated system at scale can be understood and gamed. And because humans interact with secure systems, and humans can be tricked. Even when you built a system that's say, cryptographically secure, you manipulate the humans to work around it, because humans aren't good at identifying cryptographic keys, and all automated systems serve human clients or masters. This is why the Play Store and Chrome Web Store are full of malware, and why human-curated app markets have effectively zero.

colinmhayes 6y ago

Whether an arbitrary program will end.

seisvelas 6y ago
Haha I know this wasn't intended as a joke, but this answer made me burst out laughing. Very true! On the other hand, that's not such an easy problem for humans to solve either